A thousand miles of fire (and I'm here to sing this anthem)
by ibuzoo
Summary: It's a bit like Romeo and Juliet, the ongoing war between Good and Evil, besides the overdramatic death of two teenagers who were crazy in love but too bovine to see the tragedy they were racing headfirst into. Hermione is seventeen and she never loved a man before, not the way that she does Tom, the enemy, the Capulet, Voldemort.


**A thousand miles of fire (and i'm here to sing this anthem)**

**Prompt: **Middle

**Rating: **M

**Warnings: **Canon Divergence / Blood Kisses / War between Good and Evil / Romeo and Juliet

**Word count: **1278

**Summary: **It's a bit like Romeo and Juliet, the ongoing war between Good and Evil, besides the overdramatic death of two teenagers who were crazy in love but too bovine to see the tragedy they were racing headfirst into. Hermione is seventeen and she never loved a man before, not the way that she does Tom, the enemy, the Capulet, _Voldemort. _

**A/N: **To clear things up if it's not quite clear what I meant with this Universe, the Dark Side fights against the Order, but it's a really big war and not just a single Battle in Hogwarts. Tom is obviously on the Dark Side, Hermione on the Light Side and well, basically Romeo and Juliet happens. Kinda.

**Disclaimer: **This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

* * *

**o.**

The war rages on.

**i.**

To love Tom is to become his destiny.

_(a hundred days and a hundred nights of fighting him down on the battlefield, till all her spells ha_ve_ turned dark to the core, her magic singing for his blood in her veins)_

He'll always walk away.

He'll always leave her behind.

**ii.**

It's a bit like Romeo and Juliet, the ongoing war between Good and Evil, besides the overdramatic death of two teenagers who were crazy in love but too bovine to see the tragedy they were racing headfirst into. Hermione is seventeen and she never loved a man before, not the way that she does Tom, the enemy, the Capulet, _Voldemort. _

It's as ridiculous as it is forbidden and Hermione swears on everything she holds dear that she never had a choice in this matter.

**iii.**

They met in the Middle, no benefits for either sides, no one to tell her to _stop_, _turn around, leave this, leave him, don't fall for him Hermione, don't, _**_don't_**_._

She knew him the minute he started to speak, the way his words drawled perfectly around her mind, tried to lure her in, to pull her on his side. But Hermione reversed his speech against him, used alliterations and wandless magic to put on her wards, her shields, Leglimens. Tom merely smirked, a dark glimmer in his eyes, suddenly his hands in her hair and his perfect lips on hers, breathing poison in her lungs, tasting copper, tasting blood.

They're fighting in a war on two different sides and war never allows a ground to walk on, not in the Middle, not in the End.

They're still fighting.

They won't stop.

_(but there's much more to fight for now)_

**iv.**

She can't have regards for him.

**v.**

She fights him with all what she has got and returns curse after curse with the same ferocity, the same wildness that reflects in his grey - no, red - eyes and they're dueling with the rapidness as two muggle machine guns. She throws her curse and he blocks it a tad too late, just a second but it suffices to impact with his shoulder, gash open his dark robes and pale skin that lays free. Blood trickles in drops trough the tear, moistening his front in a puddle that clings to his skin and his eyes turn a deeper shape of red, bright crimson, his face high in the air, the Curse on his skin, the first syllable leaving his lips, a green light on the tip of his wand.

Hermione throws the Cloak of Invisibility over her shoulders and hides for hours in the dark of the night.

They don't meet for weeks after this.

**vi.**

He can't have regards for her either.

**vii.**

_(missing Tom feels like chapped lips and his name is the cold, bitter winter)_

**viii.**

Tom presses her back against the bark of an old fir just out of Hogsmeade and her jumper lifts up, leaves her skin bare to scratch on the old wood of the tree. There's no one here, no one knows and her breath changes, trips hazily when Tom's lips suck at her neck, his teeth butchering her skin until deep red marks flash against it. She moans and bites down on her swollen lips, tries to suppress the noises that escape when his slender fingers dance along the hem of her jumper, pull it up and press against her heathen skin. His hands are ice, like the grey that lays in his eyes but Hermione doesn't care, doesn't see because her eyes are closed, her head lays back against the bark and the moment he pushes her clothes up, her bra down to bend and taste and bite at her delicious skin, she forgets everything around her.

_(there is blood on her lips, there are bruises on her skin but neither Harry nor Ron assume that they're from a war much more personal than the one right before Hogwarts' doors)_

**ix.**

Harry gets into her room at four a.m and Hermione sighs, rolls around to spare him a glance. She wasn't sleeping, wasn't expecting to sleep tonight, but sometimes shutting the curtains and closing away the world is preferable to the alternatives.

She shifts a bit and gives him space and Harry follows, sits down right beside her and tilts his head, worry in his eyes, fear, trouble. They sit in uncomfortable, cramped silence but Harry is warm and smells of exhaustion and fatigue, the war wrenching at his nerves and Hermione gets it, gets everything the moment he says, "The war is no place for love."

"No," she says firmly, because Harry expects it and she loves Harry, she really does. If it wasn't for Harry, she wouldn't be here anymore, not for Ron, not for the Order, just for Harry.

Harry makes a little humming sound and kisses her forehead, as if she was a little child that needed comfort after a real bad nightmare, and then he leaves the room without saying anything more.

_(they both knew she needed the reminder why she was still there, why she still was on this side of the war)_

The blanket is still warm from where he was sitting and Hermione shifts away from it, closes her eyes and knits her fingers together, counts the seconds, embraces the darkness. The room is quit but for the easy sound of her breathing, and she turns into it and sleeps.

**x.**

One time, Tom tries to burn the dark mark on her neck, his wand at her cervical artery, the tip burning red but inches away from her delicate skin that bruises far too fast. She curses him in a swift motion, throws him once across the room and his answer follows right back, hits her right in the calf, draws blood.

There's an awful, tense silence and Tom's eyes turn red, grey, red, grey, and a moment later he apparetes right beside her and devours her mouth, ravishes it until her lips are red-swollen and bleeding.

_(there's no Dark Mark on her skin, but marks in shape of his teeth, his fingers, his lips)_

**xi.**

Her chest feels as if it's full of crushed glass, her skin coated in thorns while her fingertips burn edges of parchment and her feet balance on nails.

She cannot escape the phantom bruises, the unseen scratches in her skin where his nails dug and drew droplets of blood, carved his name in her flesh again and again.

But she's still okay.

She's still okay.

_(tomorrow it could be worse)_

**xii.**

"Have you ever killed anyone?" Tom asks one night when they lie in tangled sheets and his fingers write her name, his name on her naked shoulders and her spine. She's sitting in the bed, one leg bent, arms around it and her chin rests on her knee while she feels the magic crackling under his fingertips.

_(it leaves little chills on her skin, like morning dew on spiderwebs, cold, tingling)_

"Not yet."

Tom hums amused and she doesn't need to turn around to see the grin spreading on his lips, wide like a Cheshire Cat, a cruel mask on his handsome face and Hermione closes her eyes, repeats in her head, '_Not yet.'_

**xiii.**

_(they both know it won't last)_

**xiv.**

His scent sticks to her blouse and it stays, stains her skin, buries into her pores.

He lives in her.

He'll never go away.

He makes her sick.

_(but she loves the poison on her tongue, contaminating her like cigarette smoke that sloshes her lungs)_

**xv.**

The war still rages on.


End file.
